To Win this Fabulous Prize, All You Have To Do Is...

I'm not above bribery as a parent. Whatever works. If a 4 dollar Green Tea Frappacino from Starbucks will buy me adequate help during an afternoon of errands with the boys, I consider that worth my 4 bucks. And actually, Rachel's not even that pricey most times; a Kit Kat bar will work just as well.

So when we were driving home on Friday from the Mount and Rachel informed me that one of her better friend's sister (16 months older) is pregnant, my brain kicked into normal gear of parental musing.

While my brain was musing, she told me the dad of said girl now won't let the younger sister hang out with her boyfriend alone. I asked Rachel "Um, can you blame him?" and to my delight, she agreed that she couldn't blame him at all.

And that's when I bribed her. If she promises to make it through high school graduation without getting pregnant, we'll send her and a friend on a trip to Europe as a graduation present. Naturally, I'm hoping that friend will be me and we'll have a whole Gilmore Girls moment, but since I need the bribe to sound appealing, I didn't say that out loud. I did include that the best way to ensure no pregnancy was no sex whatsoever and we held that conversation for a few minutes.

So I'm thinking that to really make this a worthwhile bribe, I'll actually set up a savings account and we'll all start pitching in a few bucks here and there. And I'll have her keep an online folder of potential European places to visit. Make it as tangible as possible.

By the way, I never said I wasn't going along. The bribe said her and a friend, but I never said they were going alone. Again, I've got to make the bribe sound good, so I just didn't mention that one.